A reflection on the classic album.
My love affair with the Beatles' classic White Album has been a brief and intense one. It's hard to really place when my appreciation of the Beatles began.…
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
Review: The Beatles' White Album - Comments Page 2
Article comments
26 - Al Barger
Godoggo, I'm just reacting to the memory of one specific 4 CD set, which I need to give another spin. I wouldn't say that I know the stuff well enough to say a lot about it, but what I heard was mostly not especially fancy playing.
Yeah, I don't know that the music hall thing in particular was big on Rubber Soul, just that this was the album where they officially became Artistes.
It was more than just a "fun" influence though, but something broader that broke out their original talents in a kaleidoscope of different dramatic directions. The frank sentimentality of "Eleanor Rigby" and "She's Leaving Home" work, as does the Kinks "Village Green Preservation Society." Baby Jane could have sung "She's Leaving Home" in her vaudeville act next to her signature "Writing a Letter to Daddy." (It was postmarked to heaven above.)
27 - godoggo
OK, well, I was just quoting somebody who's opinion I respect, because of his deep musical knowledge. I myself haven't listened to much music hall.
As for Eleanor Rigby, aside from the strings, it's musically very much a folk song. The ambiguity is Dylanesque. I'd see the sentimentality (a bad thing, to my tastes) as just an expression of Paul's personality.
28 - Rob
The Beatles were great. I don't think there has been or will ever be another group as influential as them. Whenever I write a song and hit a road block, I always ask myself what the Beatles would do for the next step. Works almost every time.
29 - Shark
WWTBD?
Cool!
30 - JR
Shark: I bought 'em as they came out -- which makes me around 104 years old.
Turn me on, dead man.
31 - Temple Stark
Bryan, I've moved this to Advance.net, as a "retro-review" a place affiliated with about 10 newspapers around the country.
One such site is here.
Thank you.
Temple Stark
32 - Conguero
It was... "Turn AROUND dead man" for the backwards facing Paul on the backside of the Pepper LP.
And the Beatles, were great. ALL of their individual efforts were ALL very good too.
I don't think there is any disputing that fact.
I like them all... except... my sisters gooshing (wetting panties) over the Beatles on Ed Sullivan....
MY GAWD... I was a Dave Clark 5 and Kinks fan after that episode. But in retrospect, I have probably had every Beatles release at one time or another in one form of media or another.
Would I buy the White Album in CD format. No. Why? Because I'm saving up for a new set of Conga's....
Everyone has to have priorities.
L8tr
33 - Emma Morrow
I was first exposed to the Beatles as a young child. My mother used to hum songs from Yellow Submarine, as she held me underwater while bathing.
Most kids spent their early childhood in a sandbox, or in preschool: until I was 6 mother had me belt-fastened to a chair by day, a bed-cage by night, with John, Paul, George and Ringo playing nonstop on a cruel betamax, over and over to Pepperland. God.
High school was bad, too, because I got zits.
After graduating, I ran away from home, because a traveler, a hobo, a bum , if you will, but I could never stomach the bouncy chords of the Beatles, it reminded me of pain and bad Liverpudlian accents.
And then I was introduced to the White Album.
It was perfect, a bolt of genius, a cover absent the Beatles ruddy mugs was my antidote. I could finally think clearly becuase I wasn't traumatized by seeing the Beatles, only hearing the Beatles.
Joy.
Joy. joy. joy.joy. joy. joy. joy. joy
JOY! JOY! JOY! JOY! JOY! JOY! JOY! JOY! JOY! JOY! JOY! JOY! JOY! JOY! JOY! JOY!
ahhhhh
now I can kill my mother.
34 - uao
Sidebar on the "vaudeville" sounding numbers...
They were more in the English pub hall tradition than vaudeville, although pub music was certainly influenced deeply be vaudeville.
These would have been sentimental songs that McCartney's dad would have sung while getting rosy cheeked with his mates in the 30's.
McCartney's father James actually was a small time dabbler in music himself, writing a few tunes, performing at pubs. McCartney wrote these songs perhaps with his father in mind; he's always had an air of trying to be a "regular" bloke, something of course, he can never be.
The earliest manifestation of McCartney's vaudeville/pub music I can think of off the top of my head would have been "When I'm 64" on Sgt. Pepper in '67. The White Album had Honey Pie; McCartney would have a few with Wings, including "You Gave Me The Answer".
In 1974, he released a 45 Walking In The Park With Eloise/Bridge Over The River Suite The 45 was Wings' version of a song his father wrote, and it hams it up bigtime (Wings renamed themselves The Country Hams for this release). Incidentally, the b-side is a jazzy instrumental (not vaudeville flavor) that is quite possibly one of Wings' best tracks, although few people heard it.
His vaudeville/pub excursions are pretty silly, and don't merit high among Beatle classics. But the Beatles album's sums were increased by these parts; they added breadth that make their whole output gain breadth.
Lennon famously hated "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" and said nasty things about it literally up to the very day he died.
Defending Macca:
In defense of McCartney, "Helter Skelter" "Bithday" and "Why Don't We Do It In The Road" are some of the hardest rock the Beatles recorded; "Martha My Dear" "I Will" and "Mother Nature's Son" his most tuneful and lovely, and "Back In The USSR" is a great spoof made even better when you know the story of the rivalry between the Beatles and the Beach Boys. "Rocky Raccoon" has some of his best lyrics and a real sense of humor.
On 'Paul is Dead' clues:
Revolution 9 backward is "Turn me on dead man" (as the legend goes; it always sounded like 'Nyert ee myon, nyed ma' to me). The mumbled bit at the end of "I'm So Tired" is "Paul is dead man, miss him, miss him!" (again, I never quite heard it that way)
The one Paul-Is-Dead legend that can be refuted is Lennon intoning "I Buried Paul" twice during the coda for Strawberry Fields" He always claimed he said "Cranberry Sauce", and if you hear the demo, cranberry sauce it is.
35 - Eric Berlin
Awesome takes, uao.
What's up with this line on "Glass Onion":
"Well here's another clue for you all /
The walrus was Paul"
I kind of knew what this was supposed to mean at some point, but now it escapes me.
I've always loved that tune, by the way, one of my faves on The White Album. That, and "Savoy Shuffle". If that puts me in the minority, so be it!
36 - godoggo
"My mother used to hum songs from Yellow Submarine, as she held me underwater while bathing."
Ha.
37 - godoggo
Blogging prose.
And...submit!
38 - godoggo
...or was what you said that actually what you meant?
39 - uao
On "heres another clue for you all/the Walrus was Paul" and other Paul is Dead Clues:
(Don't tell HW Saxton about this post, I didn't research it. So if a Beatlefan -you know the kind I mean- is lurking, feel free to flesh this out, or slap out any errors)
As recollection serves:
The rumor was esentially that Paul McCartney was killed in a motorway accident in his Aston Martin in 1966. The Beatles, and Brian Epstien (who really did die of a mysterious overdose in '67) in particular, wanted to hush things up.
So a replacement was found, in the person of doppelganger William Campbell.
The rumor was broadcast during a late night Detroit call-in radio show in 1969. The spinner of the yarn was a deejay named Gibson (forgot his first name).
Gibson played "clues" from the records, and pointed out album art clues as he broadcast this "believe-it-or-don't" style bit that went on for about an hour. It was delivered in a mock solemn tone, and was extremely well done; tapes of the original show circulate and it is very creepy listening.
It was even more creepy in the paranoid environment of 1969 in a left-leaning labor town like Detroit during a very polarizing era in the city's history. People took the rumor seriously, and the rumor spread far and wide around the world.
Examining album covers for "hints" the Beatles placed became a real pastime. Sgt. Pepper has the most clues, among them the Beatles standing before a grave while wax figures of them are dressed like mourners. A floral arrangement looks like a car crashing and burning over a cliff. Another floral arrangement is shaped like Paul's bass. Hundreds of "clues exist", including in the photos on the inner gatefold.
"A Day In The Life" references the incident. The Magical Mystery Tour album had similar clues in the artwork and songs. In the Magical Mystery Tour film, Lennon sings "I Am The Walrus" and presumably is the man wearing the walrus costume.
The White Album had the most sonic clues on it. The line "here's another clue for you all" was the Beatles letting us in on the ruse, and "the walrus was Paul" added to the mystery.
What the Beatles really meant by that line escapes me, if it has ever been revealed.
I first heard the original tape the same year I was totally Beatle-mad, in 1979. Despite ten years of debunking, I still halfway bought it. I was just a conspiracy-minded adolescent then.
Of course, the rumor never explained a few key things, like how did they find an identical human, also lefthanded like the late Paul, complete with his musical abilities? Why the coverup? Money? Blackmail? Did Brian Epstien know too much?
In the supergeek world of manic Beatle scholar-geeks the Paul Is Dead legend has taken on a life of its own even to this day, with fans finding new hints, some of them really quite good and others not, all over the place. I knew a guy who did a 90-minute slideshow presentation with album details and soundbytes at fan conventions. I caught his show once, but I didn't stay for the convention...
40 - Eric Berlin
When I first heard about this stuff, as a kid circa 1986 or so, it was presented to me that the rumor held that Paul died, to be replaced by none other than Lee Harvey Oswald, who impersonated Paul long through the years.
I was fascinated by all of the clues, of course, particularly Abbey Road's album cover.
41 - Bryan McKay
I've always thought the whole mystique around the rumors/"clues" was very interesting. Although not having been even born until "circa 1986 or so," by the time I came around to the album much of the mystique had lifted. No one really still thinks Paul is dead (unless, of course, we're talking about his music career), but it is still fascinating to go back and look at the various connections people made. More interesting were the various Manson connections outlined in the book Helter Skelter. It just adds another layer of depth to the listening experience.
42 - Al Barger
Talking earlier in the thread about the English music hall tradition, I was thinking of an album. HERE IT IS
43 - fab4
I have been a *huge* highly impressed Beatles (especially) John & Paul fan since I was 9 and I got my first Beatles book for 11th birthday and I had every album by the time I was 13.
I want to correct uao about A Day in The life having rerencing the "incident" about Paul's "death". John Lennon actually wrote the song especially the lines about,I read the news today oh boy and he blew his mind out in a car,about the death of guiness heir Tara Brown who was a good friend of theirs and died at the age of 21 in a car crash in December 1966. John wrote this after reading the coroners report on his death in The Daily Mail. Paul actually met Tara first in the same club where he would eventually meet Linda.Tara Brown would have inherited a million dollars if he had lived to be 25!
44 - uao
fab4--
You're right, that's what he was really writing about.
When I say "A Day In The Life" refrences Paul's car accident and subsequent death, it is only if you accept the premise that Paul is indeed dead, and the beatles were leaving clues.
As Paul himself has pointed out, he is, in fact, alive.
;-)
45 - fab4
I forgot to mention that I was born in 1965 during the middle of their amazing recording career and I have always loved *all* of their music from their early days to the end! A Hard Day's Night is just as great as The White album in many ways.Rubber Soul is one of my big favorites to.
Also Paul's great heavy blues rocker,She's A Woman from late 1964,his screaming heavy(especially for 1965) rocker I'm Down are also rockers from Paul. Also John's great I Want You(She's So Heavy) from Abbey Road which people have pointed out as well as Paul's Helter Skelter are the first real heavy metal songs,and John's great hard rocker,the single version of Revolution are all great hard rockers.
In a 2001 online Bender Magazine interview Ozzy Osbourne says Paul McCartney is a genuis and The Beatles are the greatest band to ever walk this earth! He's been a huge Beatles fan since he was a teenager and She Loves You was one of the first records he ever bought.
46 - Temple Stark
Music Editor Temple Stark picked this for an Editor's Pick of the Week. Go find out why HERE and grab a button.
Thank you.
47 - fab4
I wanted to add some things since my last posts.There is an excellent book by Mark Lewisohn called,The Beatles Recording Sessions and it's a very thorough detailed musical diary of their amazing 8 year recording career. It strongly documents how truly brilliant,creative,and innovative especially John and Paul were in the recording studio. The book is unfortunately out of print but some libraries may have it.
Many of their recording engineers are interviewed in this book too and they are all really impressed with them too. Some of these engineers went on to work with other well known music artists too. Norman Smith,one of The Beatles early engineers went on to work with Pink Floyd,Ken Scot went on to work with David Bowie and Alan Parsons,a highly impressed Beatles fan was one of their engineers on their last two albums,Let it Be and Abbey Road.
Just one of the many impressive examples in this book,is in John Lennon's good song I'm Only Sleeping,George Harrison recorded a backwards guitar in the most difficult way even though there was an easy way,and Geoff Emerick one of their recording engineers said George made it doubly more difficult by adding more distorted guitars and it took 6 hours just for the guitar overrdub!
George Harrison's mother said in the 1967 only authorized Beatles biography by Hunter Davies,that she would stay up until 2 in the morning with George when he was only 14 and he would play the guitar until he got the chords just right and his fingers were bleeding!
There is an interesting online interview with musician Frank Marino of the hard rock group Mahagony Rush from 2003 where he says he can't stand The Rolling Stones and that they are the worst hoax ever and that a lot of people are suckers for The Rolling Stones. In his recent interviews he says he likes and listens to The Beatles though!
48 - Terry Daine
Hello,
i was wondering if you could get back to me on this matter, i have been searching everywhere on the web to find the chords along with the words for the song johnny b good, i was hoping you could get back to me with a picture of the words, and when a chord changes in the song then put it in brackets beside it, i want to learn the song and hope you will help me on the matter.
Thank you.
49 - Douglas McCarthy
Hey Terry #48 No offense man, but Johnny B Goode is 3 chords. E A and B, or G C and D, or A D and E or...well, take your pick. You really can't find the chords to that song on the web. Are you joking? It's not exactly what I would call obscure. And as far as when the chords change,...are you serious!?
50 - steve
The white album changed my life. 'nuff said!
51 - Mason
I dont understand why everyone doesnt give Paul his due, "You never give me your money" is my favorite Beatle song. And I never understood why classics like "here there and everywhere", "she came in through my bathroom window", "golden slumbers", Eleanor Rigby, Mother Natures Son, I will, Martha My Dear, Let it Be, Penny Lane, Paperback Writer, and many other songs never get their due. Unfortunatly I think the man might have to die before people realize that he is better than Elvis, John Lennon, Mick Jaggar, and Sinatra.